Traditional hallmarks of Melvins recordings had been impossibly-driving riffs tempered paradoxically by hypnotic, meditating drone; complexity for the sake of success rather than vanity and formulaic conformity; avant garde productions motivated by a compulsion to innovate; the strategic deployment of noise as central to, rather than inimical to signal; and, though they may deny it, a trickster spirit as engaging as it could be frustrating. In the wake of bassist Kevin Rutmanis' silent dissolution, The Melvins released Houdini Live 2005: A History of Gluttony and Lust. Nothing if not flexible, Trevor Dunn fills in on bass to participate in recording a snapshot of the Melvins demonstrating in a live performance these hallmark traits and their constant trajectory into the New. No career spanner to be sure, Houdini Live 2005 is nevertheless a definitive snapshot of Melvins on a mission.
With the 2006 incorporation of Jared Warren on bass and Coady Willis on a second drum kit, the Melvins' hallmark sound remains intact, but incorporates progressive new qualities that would define subsequent and now contemporary Melvins output: complex and throbbing rhythms defined through sympathetic dialog between Dale and Coady's strikes; almost throughout, vocal harmonies by, at the very least, Jared and Buzzo, are so tightly precise that they're hard to distinguish from engineered reverb. The resulting productions are more Melvins than Melvins: It's a familiar sound grown enormous, sure, and consistently compelling.
Photo by Rik Goldman
On Sugar Daddy Live, Toshi Kasai's engineering captures this contemporary Melvins aesthetic, their most compelling, on consistently anthemic songs predominantly culled from late-age albums “(A) Senile Animal” and “Nude with Boots.” In the exceptions, “Boris,” “Eye Flys,” and “Tipping the Lion” we see how Melvins' recently-juiced aesthetic serves their hallmark legacy: while the pace of the songs may have increased, so have their run times, as the four-piece breaks into contorted, unified, but hardly choreographed jams (both “Boris” and “Eye Flys”).
Photo by Rik Goldman
Sugar Daddy Live is another striking recording evincing a point made throughout the Melvins' discography: The Melvins have always already been becoming more than merely Melvins.
